The Spirit of DIY

There is something incredibly satisfying about DIY, isn’t there? The simple, self-conceived solution to a basic problem; the joy of saving money and hassle by not having to get someone in to do it for you; and, a slight – slight – feeling of manliness.

I was reading a piece over the weekend on the annoying Top Gear presenter James May (actually, although I don’t watch it, he’s the least annoying of the three) and his new series which is all about inventions and problem solving. In it, he talks about the pleasures of manual work, and how it uses parts of the brain that most of us office workers leave dormant.

And he’s right. One of the big battles for people of my mid-30s generation is to rediscover the importance of doing things with your own hands. Fixing stuff. Making stuff. The limited amount of DIY I’ve done I’ve found, after a bit of coaching, to be really simple and immensely satisfying.

What’s more, the internet is such a fantastic resource for most problem solving that there isn’t really an excuse to not get stuck into something around your house, or building something – it’s amazing what parts of yourself you can rediscover.

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